


clearing out the unknown

by 21hax



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Friends With Benefits, Future Fic, M/M, Multi, Open Relationships, Polyamory Negotiations, Werewolf Stiles Stilinski, eventually, this has a plot I swear, well it's not really an AU they're just in college
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-01 04:09:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2759105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/21hax/pseuds/21hax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Scott and Stiles have a lot of casual sex, people start to go missing, and Stiles maybe gets turned into a werewolf a little bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is basically entirely canon compliant except most characters who died or disappeared off to a foreign country are all back and well.

"Fuck, come _on_ , dude."

On his elbows and knees, Stiles pushes his hips back to try and grind further onto Scott's dick. Scott responds to this by pulling away, switching to steady, shallow thrusts, fast in, slow out. Groaning, Stiles keeps wiggling his ass in vain as Scott laughs.

"Fuck," Stiles says through a sharp exhale. "Jesus, just fuck me already!"

Without warning, Scott snaps his hips forward hard and fast, and Stiles lets out a surprised noise that trails off into a whimper. Scott does it again, and again, long pauses in between that probably only last a second but feel like an eternity before finally picking up the pace and fucking fast and deep.

"Oh my god, Scotty, shit," Stiles mumbles through the blankets as he smushes his face into them, hanging on for dear life with his fists clenched around the sheets. He lets out a string of noises that he's long past being embarrassed by — maybe it has something to do with the huge volume of porn that he's consumed in his life, chock full of repetitive grunting and moaning, but any kind of classic sex noises only serve to turn him on more, even if they're coming from him.

As Stiles continues a stream of nearly incoherent encouragement, he spreads his legs a little bit wider and cants his hips up more, and the small change in position gives him just the right friction. As Scott keeps pounding into him, Stiles can suddenly feel his orgasm building rapidly, like a liquid meniscus just about to break and overflow. Stiles jerks back erratically to meet Scott's thrusts as he works his hand in between his legs to grab his own dick, and in just a few quick tugs he's coming so hard his whole body tenses with the force of it as it pulses through him.

Scott keeps going but he's not far behind Stiles, his movements growing uneven before slowing down completely, turning into deep, twitchy thrusts as he rides out his orgasm inside Stiles. He stays there for a good while, still fully seated in him, and it feels pleasant on both ends but eventually Stiles needs to get this two-ton werewolf off his back so he swats at him until he flumps down on the bed beside him. Stiles slowly stretches out his aching legs before rolling onto his back next to Scott.

"Shit, dude," Stiles says with a dopey grin and a blissed out laugh.

"Yeah," Scott agrees with a weak chuckle.

Stiles lies there staring at the bottom of the top bunk for a while as he catches his breath, before getting up and shuffling into the kitchen. Now that they're juniors in college, they get dibs on the dorms with their own little kitchenette and they don't have to share it with two additional roommates. Meaning, Stiles gets to have crazy loud sex whenever he wants and wander about the place naked afterwards without a care in the world. Their room still comes with shitty bunk beds but since he and Scott share a bed all the time they've just designated the top bunk for storage.

He grabs a water bottle from the fridge and downs half of it on his way back to the bedroom, before capping the rest and throwing it at Scott. It gets him square in the stomach, then rolls off and rests against his side.

"Shit, that's cold," Scott grumbles as he grabs it and then sits up a little so he can chug it.

"Man, I love having our own place," Stiles says with a happy sigh as he throws himself back onto the bed. "Nothing like those quick jerks we used to do all stealth mode."

"Oh my god, seriously, it was so hard to get a second to ourselves. We got caught like a thousand times, I dunno how we didn't get kicked out."

Stiles laughs. "Remember that weird roof patio in the library? And we realized, like, no one goes there 'cause they don't even know it exists. It was fun there but man, I will not miss banging in the cold wind."

"It was _so_ cold," Scott says with a wince.

They lay there and Scott finishes off the water bottle and then Stiles turns his head to look at him.

"You ready for round two, big guy?" he asks with a smirk, already palming lazily at himself.

"Hell yeah," Scott says with a grin, and in an instant he's crawling over the bed to settle above Stiles, hands braced on either side of his head. Stiles grabs him around the middle and pushes him over to flip their positions, before sitting on his hips, the cleft of his ass resting just at the base of Scott's soft dick.

"You know what I've been thinking?" Stiles looks down at Scott's chest as he draws meaningless patterns on it, and Scott can hear his heart rate ratchet up. He looks at Stiles' face seriously, not quite concerned yet, as he rubs his hands idly up and down Stiles' thighs.

"What's up, bro?"

"You've been a werewolf for like, what, four years now?"

"Yeah?"

"So you've got a pretty good handle on the whole thing by now, right? All your wolfy instincts in check?"

"Yeah, I mean, I guess?"

"Well, I've always kinda wanted to see, like...the whole wolfed-out thing, up close and personal," Stiles says hesitantly, and Scott is already shaking his head before he even continues with, "And maybe have a little bit of sex with it?"

"No way. I could hurt you so easy, dude," Scott protests as he scoots up on the bed into more of a sitting position, bringing Stiles up with him in his lap.

"No you wouldn't!" Stiles insists, putting his hands on Scott's shoulders. "From the very beginning, you've never even come close to hurting me. You know not to. I'm in your pack."

Scott just shakes his head and looks down.

"C'mon, you know you wanna," Stiles sing-songs.

"It's different," Scott says as he shakes his head again, before looking up into Stiles' eyes. "You know I run on instinct as a wolf, no matter how much more control I have these days. I wouldn't just wanna fuck you. I'd want to mate with you and make you like me. I'd want to bite you and claim you."

Stiles lets out a whoosh of breath. "Fuck, that's hot," he says seriously, before cracking a smirk. Scott shakes his head and rolls his eyes, but he lets out a laugh, too.

"But no homo, right?" Stiles asks, face zipping back to serious, and Scott groans in mock exasperation before shoving Stiles off of him and onto his back on the bed with a flump. Stiles just cackles as Scott gets out of bed and stands up, raising his arms above his head in a deep stretch. In their early teens, both of them used to be scared of what their sexual attraction to each other meant, and what it made them, and they tried denying it in all sorts of ways. Now that they've finally reached the point where they've established that they're just a couple of bros who don't want to date each other but just like to fuck in between girlfriends and they're okay with that, Stiles can't help but poke fun at it every once in a while still.

"Whatever, dude," Scott says after his stretch and a yawn. He may be a wolf but Stiles would swear sometimes he looks like he must be part baby kitten instead. "Go suck your own dick."

Stiles quickly scrambles into a sitting position at that. "You were gonna suck my dick?"

Scott leaves the room and calls over his shoulder, "I'm gonna make some PB&J waffles."

He hops up and follows Scott out of the bedroom like a puppy. "Shit, screw the blowjay, those waffles are orgasmic."

 

They don't really mention Scott getting wolfy in front of Stiles again. Stiles is content to just let it go for now, not wanting to push anything on his best friend, but Scott can't help thinking about it. A lot.

He's always been curious about the differences in sex drive or performance as a wolf. Once when he was a teenager, after he'd gotten the hang of the general wolf business but wasn't exactly experienced yet, he tried to jerk off as a wolf. It felt weird; his senses were a lot sharper, and it felt a lot more like trying to satisfy a deeply base instinct, but he got so freaked out by getting his claws that close to his junk that even though he'd gotten rock hard from the anticipation, he barely even touch himself before turning back to human and jerking off like that.

He hasn't really experimented with that since. He's thought about it, sure, but not much. Not all that much until Stiles had to go and bring it up.

So he's lazing around on the couch, contemplating actually getting up to work on his essay while Stiles is in class instead of just daydreaming about fucking him as a wolf while he idly palms himself through his sweatpants, when his cellphone rings from the bedroom. Heaving a sigh, he rolls off the couch and shuffles towards it, mumbling, "I'm coming, I'm coming," to himself as he goes.

The screen displays Liam's name and a goofy picture of him that Scott took years ago of him pulling a horrible face mid-throw during lacrosse practice. It brings a smile to Scott's face every time he sees it.

"What's up, bro?" he says as he answers.

"Uhh, Scott?" comes Liam's nervous, urgent voice. "We've got a problem."

Scott goes from lazily content to on edge and alert instantly. "What's wrong?"

"Boyd and Isaac are missing."

"What do you mean, missing? Like, _missing_ -missing?"

"Missing, like, abruptly nowhere to be seen, won't answer their phones kind of missing."

"For how long?" Scott quickly rummages around for a pen and notebook, knowing by now that even the smallest detail could help them piece together the puzzles they encounter.

"Isaac for three days, Boyd for two. At least, that's going by the last time anyone's heard from them."

They hash out the details of who spoke to them last and exactly when, then Liam talks about the plan of action he'd already started discussing with his half of the pack. With Liam going to a community college really close to Beacon Hills, he stays in regular contact with Derek, Cora, Malia, Boyd, Erica and Isaac, along with a lot of the "real" adults out there like Deaton and Scott's mom and Stiles' dad and even Allison's dad. All of them have already started retracing Isaac and Boyd's last steps, the werewolves trying to follow any scent trails they can find.

When Scott gets off the phone with Liam, he sends Stiles a text to put him on guard: _Liam called. Isaac &Boyd missing 2-3 days._

Then Scott just feels like a sitting duck. He has no idea what to do being this far away from Beacon Hills, living on campus in the Bay Area. But something that he knows is important to do is place due trust in his packmates and be able to leave responsibility to them.

This side of the pond, Scott remains close to his half of the pack — Lydia, Allison, Kira, Aiden, and Ethan. The girls go to a different school than Scott and Stiles, the twins go to yet another, but they still meet up a lot to hang out in the city.

So he texts his pack half basically the same thing he sent Stiles just to alert them. Then, even though it's silly, he suddenly feels guilty just sitting around doing nothing, so he finally resigns himself to his homework and actually gets a good dent in it before it's time for him to get going to his first class of the day.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on CotU: Isaac and Boyd went missing, and Scott and Stiles fucked.

Later that day in the evening, Scott and Stiles are done with classes and they're back at the dorm discussing the news.

"Do you think this could be on purpose? Like Boyd and Isaac left?" Stiles asks, only throwing out the idea halfheartedly as he roots around in the fridge for something to eat.

"What? Why would they leave without a trace?" Scott asks from where he sits at one of the barstools at the kitchen counter, where he's pouring over several textbooks.

"I dunno," Stiles shrugs as he spots a pack of sliced cheese in the back and takes it out. "I mean the other half are all kind of _together_ , right? What if Boyd and Isaac fell in couple-love and decided to run off into the sunset together?"

Scott wads up the shitty essay draft he's working on and throws it at Stiles, who squawks an indignant, "Dude!"

"Don't be a jackass," Scott says, already scribbling out a new outline. "Boyd and Isaac would never do that to the rest of the pack, not without telling anyone."

"Yeah, okay," Stiles says, knowing it was a dumb idea anyway. He'd just rather that option than the alternative of them being taken against their will. He looks down and kicks the balled up paper into a corner of the kitchen, where it's probably officially gone to die. He then inspects the packet of cheese in his hands and sees he must've accidentally ripped off the expiration date at some point, but he opens it and sniffs it and he figures it passes. "Hey, I'm gonna make grilled cheese, you want any?"

"Two, please," Scott says, glancing up. "Thanks."

"No prob."

Stiles gets out the butter, bread, and his favorite little pan to make grilled cheese in. He knows it's horrible and his dad would wanna smack him for the hypocrisy of it, but he melts a shit-ton of butter in the pan for the sandwiches and it already looks delicious. He starts frying up the first one, aiming for a nice golden brown on either side.

"Yo Scotty, check this out," Stiles says and Scott looks up from his notes to see Stiles taking the small pan off the stove and holding it out in front of him, rocking it back and forth to move the sandwich around, before flicking it and making the sandwich flip perfectly in the air before landing on the other side. Stiles grins and says, "No spatula necessary!"

Scott laughs. "Nice."

"I've mastered the art of queso a la parilla," Stiles says, playfully boasting as he flips the sandwich over and over.

"Trust me, that's not queso a la parilla."

"What? Why not? That's how you say grilled cheese, isn't it?"

"Sure, but actual queso a la parilla is more like...I dunno, a real sandwich with stuff in it. Your thing is more like a sándwich tostado de queso. And even those are better than American grilled cheese."

"Dude. Literally every Mexican food is better than anything American."

"Point."

Stiles flips the sandwich again and it lands spectacularly on the floor. "Oh, shit. Okay, maybe I haven't exactly _mastered_ the art of sandwiches tostado a la queso."

"Dude, no. Just stop with the Spanish."

"Roger that," Stiles says as he tries to pick up the sandwich without burning his fingers. He quickly tosses it back into the pan and sets it back on the stove burner. "Burn away the bacteria," he says quietly in some sort of dramatic haunted house type of voice, as he hunches over the pan and tilts it every which way to slide the sandwich around. Then to Scott, "Don't worry, bro, I'll take this one."

"Nah, I don't care, I'm hungry."

"'Kay, cool."

He makes another and gives them both to Scott before making another two for himself. He sits in the barstool next to Scott and chows down, watches Scott bust out his essay like a champ, and he proofreads Scott's second draft that he typed up on the laptop he's borrowing from the library, and points out some typos.

When they're done eating, Stiles takes their crumby, greasy paper plates and throws them away, washes his hands real fast, then comes up behind Scott and slips his hands under his shirt. He smooths out his hands against Scott's bare stomach, then up to his chest and back down again.

"C'mon, finish up already," Stiles says against his neck. "Wanna fuck you."

Scott lets out a small groan on an exhale. "I _can't_ , I've still got more reading to do after this essay."

Stiles slides a hand down to rub at Scott's quarter-chub, which quickly plumps up to a half-chub. "Then read it while I fuck you."

Scott grunts and bucks his hips a little, tries to push up into Stiles' hand, but the movement unbalances him on the tall barstool and he would've gone crashing to the ground if Stiles' arm hadn't tightened around his waist, steadying him.

"Shit, dude," Stiles says through his laughter, bubbling up louder and louder. "That would've been fucking hilarious."

"Shut the hell up," Scott says, sort of shakily amused, his heart pounding through the shot of adrenalin.

Stiles is still chuckling a little as he pulls his hands away from Scott and says, "Let's get this out of the way."

He grabs the barstool and tugs, and Scott slips off so he can take it and set it to the side. Then he gets his hands back on Scott, reaching around to unzip his jeans and get a hand in to palm him through his boxer briefs.

"C'mon, Scotty," he mutters, lips against his neck again. "You know you wanna."

Scott hums like he's still considering, feigning indecision as his fingers start clacking over his keyboard again. "I dunno...I've gotta concentrate."

"Oh yeah? Let's see just how good you can concentrate."

He keeps touching Scott through his underwear, wrapping his fingers around his dick as much as he can over the material and jerking it a little, or just taking his flat palm and rubbing him from the tip to all the way in between his legs and behind his balls, and back again.

Now that they're both just standing, Stiles easily pulls Scott back against him and grinds against his ass a little. He drags it out, keeping the layers of clothes between them, just teasing him. They love to do this to each other, the constant slow build until the other person's a complete mess. Stiles tries to do it as often as possible because he just loves driving Scott crazy, but it's usually just as often that they're both as desperate as each other for a quick, hard fuck. But with Scott here trying to study, he can't pass up the opportunity to be obnoxious about it.

He doesn't even say anything, though he's usually a bit of a talker during sexy stuff. He just slides his hands down the front of Scott's jeans, rubbing his thighs, squeezing them, then brings a hand back up to stroke Scott's dick a few times. Then his other hand goes down to tug at his balls, then reaches even further and he uses his middle finger to rub at his perineum, trying to reach his hole but not quite making it from this angle. Then he slides both his hands up Scott's shirt, swirling his fingers over his nipples before pinching them gently, then back down to tease his dick again.

He keeps this up until Scott is rock hard and letting out tons of little noises, but he's determined not to stop or let it escalate until Scott asks him.

"Fuck," he breathes out hard and fast. "Fucking hell."

Stiles smirks, brings his hands around to Scott's ass, still inside his jeans but over his underwear, and kneads it a little, digs his fingers in his crack and spreads him as much as the stretchy material will allow before letting him bounce back and then doing it again.

"God damn it, Stiles," Scott bites out, but Stiles doesn't say a word in response.

He presses a finger against his hole, pushing against the rim and rubbing it in circles. The underwear gets stuck between his cheeks when Stiles pulls his fingers away, so he pulls it out, does it again so it gets stuck again, then grabs a little fistful of the waistband at the top and yanks, pulling it hard against his crack.

"Fuck!" Scott yelps, hands clenched into fists on top his notes. "Just fuck me already!"

"As you wish, Scotty," Stiles says happily, smacking a kiss against his neck before completely withdrawing and saying, "Be right back."

He hops into the bedroom to grab their healthily sized bottle of lube off the desk. It's all he needs since they've long since abandoned condoms since they've established they're both clean and essentially exclusive for now. When he comes back into the other room, he sets the lube on the floor as he kneels behind Scott. He pulls down Scott's pants and underwear to his knees and spreads his cheeks to look at his hole. He brushes the fingers of one hand over it, then grabs his cheeks again and squeezes hard, his thumbs digging in to the sides of his rim.

"Come _on_ ," Scott pants.

Stiles withdraws and slicks up his fingers before pressing one in without much preamble. He pushes it in slow and just holds it there for a long beat, then quickly fucks it in and out a few times before adding in another finger. He sinks them both in up to the hilt and then stops, keeping them there until Scott humps back against them, desperate. Stiles just lets Scott do the work for a while until he lets out a frustrated groan, and Stiles finally shows pity on him. He squirts some extra lube on his fingers to make sure everything's nice and slick, then starts to really fuck in earnest. He rotates his fingers as he thrusts them, getting every inch of Scott's hole wet and ready.

"C'mon, c'mon, just fuck me already, I'm gonna die," Scott begs, and Stiles smiles, amused.

Deciding to finally give him what he wants, Stiles shoves his own pants and boxers down, and just that alone is a huge relief to the pressure on his dick. He slicks himself up liberally before standing up and lining himself up to Scott's hole. He can't help it, he teases him a little more by just smearing the head of his dick around the hole, and pushing against it but never breaching it. He's just about to cut it out and get down to business when Scott does it for him by pushing back hard against him, forcing a strangled groan out of Stiles as his dick slips into that super tight heat.

"Holy shit," he chokes out as he grabs Scott's hips to stabilize himself. He pushes the rest of the way inside Scott until he's balls deep, and this time he remains still just to gather his own wits. He loves Scott's ass so much, it's so tight it feels like it just sucks him in.

After a brief pause, he starts to move. Tiny, shallow movements that quickly build up to longer, deeper thrusts. He wants to try and drag it out for Scott even more but at this point he's gotten pretty desperate himself. Instead, he'll just annoy Scott a little.

"How many pages is the reading?" he asks, settling his hips into a medium-fast pace.

"Thir...thirty two," Scott huffs.

"How far did you get?"

"Two—pages."

Stiles knows it's not even that because he's still on the same page in his textbook as when he started. "Keep going."

Scott reaches out unsteadily and pulls his book closer to him. When he doesn't say anything for a while, Stiles clarifies, "Out loud."

Scott whines and stays quiet for a moment longer before finally picking up where he left off about the psychology of children in pre-adolescence. Scott's voice is shaky and littered with little breathy noises and Stiles absolutely loves it. The way Scott's voice jolts on every thrust just drives him crazy. He loves seeing his effect on Scott, body and mind. He drinks it in and it turns him on so much that the movement of his hips quickly gets more erratic as he gets closer and closer to coming.

"Fuck, keep going," he grunts as he reaches around to start tugging on Scott's dick. Scott's hole clamps around him hard as he gets real close, and he valiantly keeps reading right up until he actually comes, and he breaks off into a moan that almost sounds like sobbing.

Scott's hole fluttering as he comes is enough to get Stiles off nearly every time no matter what, just the idea of it is so hot to him it's searing, the idea that he can get Scott off like this, and the idea of the way the body works and reacts during orgasm. A lot of people associate sex with being purely physical but it's so mental for Stiles too. He has to have that mental connection, but he can't think _too_ much or he'll ruin it, and with Scott he doesn't have to.

And sure enough it's seconds before he's coming so hard his eyes squeeze shut and he couldn't open them even if he wanted to until he's done shooting his thick ropes of come into Scott.

Both of them panting harshly, it's a while before either of them even has the breath to speak. Then finally Scott says, "Dude, my legs are cramping so bad."

Stiles laughs and peels himself off Scott's back, then carefully pulls out. His legs are really tired too but he's still good for a while so after he quickly tucks himself back into his pants and zips up, he just grabs Scott and picks him up bridal style, Scott yelping in surprise at the gesture and Stiles groaning at how heavy he is.

"Damn, McCall, you're all muscle," he wheezes as he carries him into the bedroom and plops him on the bed. Scott's dick is still hanging out of his pants so he courteously tucks it back into his underwear and then pulls his jeans clear off and tosses it in the general direction of their laundry pile.

"Take a load off, I'll be right back," Stiles says as he heads to the kitchen to grab a water. He's pretty diligent about keeping them hydrated after The Amber Pee of 2k16. They had just started up their friends with benefits deal and once they got their first weekend to themselves with both their roommates out visiting family, they had an absolute sex marathon until they were practically coming dry. They forewent food and water for a long time in their excitement but afterwards they quickly realized what a mistake that was.

He chugs almost the whole bottle while he's still in the kitchen so he refills it with the tap before heading back to the bedroom. Scott's taken off the rest of his clothes and already started nodding off on the bed but Stiles pokes him and makes him drink. Then Stiles quickly strips down and settles in next to him, flopping halfway on top of him on the tiny bed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on CotU: They fucked again. That's pretty much it.

The next morning, Stiles wakes up next to Scott in his bed, and he rolls over so he can watch his friend sleep for a while. He's startled out of the peaceful moment by the sound of someone's phone going off, and Stiles roots around on the desk next to the bed for the phone as Scott noisily rouses from sleep.

It turns out it's Scott's phone and Liam's calling. Stiles snorts at the stupid picture of Liam that's set to show up when he calls, before answering it with, "You've reached the phone of Mr. Scott True Alpha McCall, how may I direct your...call?"

"Stop dicking around, Stiles," Liam says, sounding distracted. "I've got news."

"Hold up, I'mma put you on speaker," Stiles says and brings the phone away from his face to do just that, but he can't figure out Scott's dumb Android phone, so he hands it over and Scott does it.

"Hey, Liam? What's up?" Scott asks, holding the phone between them, both of them lying on their stomachs.

"So, apparently a few other people have gone missing, too. All of them are around our age, some a little younger. There's like, five of them, seven including Boyd and Isaac. They've gone missing as far back as six days ago, but it's all so recent and clustered together that they're thinking it's all related. But here's the thing, we've been searching around for clues, and we found a clearing in the woods where there's these really weird holes in the ground, seven of them. Which, okay, whatever, but Derek said he could definitely smell Boyd and Isaac nearby, but no one could pinpoint it."

Scott and Stiles look at each other.

"That's...weird," Scott says finally.

"Seven holes," Stiles says slowly, staring into space. "That's how many people are missing. How big are these holes? Are they...maybe buried there?"

"They're weird, they kind of look like gopher holes? A lot like gopher holes. But we could tell there's absolutely zero animal activity going on in them. The dirt in that clearing was really soft and moist, too. It was weird. We tried sticking our hands in, but it seemed to get smaller further down, and we couldn't feel anything."

"Huh," Stiles huffs, not sure what to do with that. "Well, that doesn't really answer anything at all."

"Yeah, sorry," Liam says, sounding just as confused about it.

"Nah, s'all good."

"We'll keep our eyes and ears open," Scott says, "But there isn't much we can do from here."

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Liam reassures them. "We've got our half on the job. And we've got all the adults on it too. Deaton says he might know something about the holes, so he's researching it. And Sheriff Stilinski is investigating all the missing people and trying to find connections. We've got all our bases covered I guess, it's just a matter of time before we find some answers."

"Guess so," Scott sighs. "Okay. Keep us updated."

"Yeah."

They exchange goodbyes and hang up, and Stiles tosses the phone back on the desk before they both flop onto their backs and stare at the top bunk.

"What the hell does this mean?" Stiles asks as he idly scratches at his stomach.

"I dunno, man," Scott says as he starts to sit up. "But thanks to you, I still have some homework to do from last night, so."

Stiles grins up at him. "Worth it, yeah?"

Scott reaches over and grabs his face with one hand, squishing his cheeks and forcing his lips into a funny pucker. "Yeah."

Stiles moves his mouth open and closed like a fish until Scott lets go. "Want a quick blowie before you get started? Let off some steam and loosen up a little?"

Scott seems to really consider it. Both of them are usually pretty horny in the morning. "Only if you really do make it quick. None of that fucking around."

Stiles laughs. "Roger that," he says, and eagerly gets to work. He spreads Scott's legs so he can settle comfortably on his stomach between them, then warms him up by rubbing his thighs up and down. He plays with Scott's balls a little, then rests his hands on the tops of his thighs, his thumbs stroking idly in the crook between his legs and his crotch. He leans into Scott's plump dick, rubs his cheek against it, then licks a broad stripe up the underside of it.

Scott takes in a sharp breath. "C'mon."

Stiles looks up at him as he grabs the base of his dick, opens wide, and sucks the whole thing down.

"Oh, fuck!" Scott shouts, his fingers grappling to grab fistfuls of Stiles' hair as he bucks up into his mouth, shoving himself further down his throat.

Stiles used to be really awful at this, choking and gagging all the time, but Scott had been really chill and patient with him as he learned, and it's seriously paying off. He can deep throat like a champ now. And it's a good thing, too, with not only how huge Scott's dick is but also how much Scott likes to fuck his mouth. It honestly doesn't take much effort from Stiles at this point, just keeps his throat nice and relaxed as Scott gives these jerky little thrusts. Then Stiles carefully swallows around him and that's it, that's all it takes for Scott to moan like he's dying and come hard down Stiles' throat. Stiles just stays there, swallowing it down and licking him slowly through his orgasm before pulling off with a wet noise and grinning up at Scott, his voice raspy as he goes, "Good?"

Scott drops his head back on the bed and slings an arm over his eyes. "Good," he breathes.

Stiles' grin widens and he crawls back out from between Scott's legs and stands up. He smacks Scott a few times on the calf closest to him and says, "Alright big guy, I'm gonna make us breakfast while you revel in your afterglow for a while."

Scott laughs and drops his arm back to his side. "You don't need me to...?" He looks down at Stiles' crotch.

"Nah, I'm good. I'll just jerk off in your cereal."

Scott groans and tries to throw a pillow at him but Stiles jumps out of the way, cackling as he leaves the room and heads to the kitchen. He whips up a bowl of Scott's favorite healthy fiber-y cereal, and makes himself oatmeal, and it looks like a breakfast for a couple of wrinkly old men, but whatever, oatmeal with cinnamon on it is the shit. He almost really does want to jerk off in Scott's cereal just to piss him off, but then Scott comes wandering into the room, so that takes out the fun in that.

Stiles sees Scott's thrown on his boxer briefs and a slightly baggy pullover sweater, and ever since the semester started he's neglected to get a haircut so it's gotten kind of shaggy. "You look like such a twink right now," he says as he hands him his cereal over the kitchen counter. "I wanna, like, eat you out."

"And you look like a total creep with your tiny dick flopping all over the place," Scott says before taking a huge bite of cereal, already propping up a textbook in front of him.

"Hey, don't make fun of Stilinski Jr! She may not be a monster werewolf cock like yours but she does her very best."

"I don't think being a werewolf affected the size of my dick," Scott says, contemplative, and thankfully he's stopped ragging on Stiles for calling his dick a "she". Stiles can't help it if it just feels _right_. He's not gonna fight it. No one can gender his beautiful penis but him.

"Yeah, no, I was totally huge before I was a werewolf," Scott says seriously. "Now go jerk off and put on some clothes, before you jump me and I _never_ get this stuff done."

Stiles scoffs. "Alright, alright." His oatmeal needs to steep a little more anyway.

He shuffles back into the bedroom and decides he should probably take a shower. He takes a piss while he waits for the water to heat up, then hops right in. He ends up taking Scott's advice and jerking off, one hand braced against the slippery tile wall and his head hanging low. Then he scrubs himself down like usual, and after he gets out and dries off, he throws on a pair of khaki pants he's only worn a few times since its last wash, and a t-shirt of Scott's for some shitty band.

When he gets back to the kitchen, Scott's studying away, and Stiles' oatmeal has gotten kind of cold but he drowns it in cinnamon and scarfs it down anyway.

"Oh, hey, we should clue in our half about Liam's update," Stiles says as he grabs Scott's empty cereal bowl and rinses it out with his own.

"Yeah," Scott agrees. "You mind sending out a text?"

"No prob," Stiles says, already heading to the bedroom for his phone. He pulls up the group message they have going for their half, and summarizes everything Liam told them. Like Scott had said, he doesn't know what use they can be out here in the Bay Area but it's always smart to keep their whole pack informed and on the same page.

"Mmkay, I sent it," he announces when he comes back into the kitchen area.

"Cool, thanks," Scott doesn't look up from his book.

Stiles sits next to Scott at the counter and just watches him for a while, his thoughts flitting around from the missing people at Beacon Hills, to Stiles' own essay that he could be doing, to just how hot Scott looks right now, all lost in concentration.

"What if...what if we never get girlfriends?" Stiles asks suddenly before he can stop himself.

Scott doesn't respond for a long moment, his eyes still flicking back and forth on the page. "What?" he says distractedly.

"Oh, uh, never mind. Sorry, you're studying," Stiles sighs, swinging around in his chair so he can lean his back against the counter, propping his elbows up on it.

"Hey, wait," Scott highlights something real quick and then looks up. He puts his hand lightly on Stiles' thigh. "What'd you say? Something about girlfriends?"

"I just..." Stiles looks away, feeling embarrassed now that he has to say it again. "I mean, we're just having fun 'cause we're single, right? So what if we never get girlfriends?"

"Hey, man, don't worry, you'll get someone one day," Scott says, patting his thigh a few times before withdrawing his hand.

"No, that's not...that's not what I mean."

"Well, what do you mean?"

"Well, what if only _one_ of us gets a girlfriend?"

"Then...I guess we'd stop," Scott says neutrally. "Unless she was okay with it."

"What kind of girl would be okay with that?" Stiles asks incredulously.

"Well, Malia," Scott says. "And Erica and Cora."

Stiles gives a fond huff of a laugh. "Yeah. I guess so."

All through their senior year in high school, Stiles and Malia had dated, but soon after they graduated she had started talking about having feelings for other members of the pack. Like, a _lot_ of members of the pack. And sure, maybe one day Stiles could see himself being down with a small, polyfidelitous kind of a deal or something (yeah, he may or may not have done some research on the subject at the time, he knows _words_ ), but he wasn't really picking up the free love, pack orgy sort of deal Malia was wanting to put down, so they split up. It was totally amicable and chill, and they're still really close.

To this day, Malia is basically in an open relationship with the entire Beacon Hills half of the pack. And Stiles figures, you do you. He's happy they're happy.

"But that's them," Stiles says. "And that's kind of a different situation."

"Yeah, but it just goes to show there's girls like that out there. Especially werewolves, or people close to werewolves, they're usually more down with a poly situation. But I mean, you really wanna keep what we've got going after you get a girlfriend?"

"Nah, man," Stiles laughs, trying to play it off. "I just don't wanna get left high and dry when _you_ get a girlfriend. I mean, I'd be fine, but it'd blow. And let's be serious, you're way more likely to get a girl."

Scott smiles, like he's still a little confused as to why they're even talking about this. "It'll all work out. We'll just play it by ear."

"Yeah, okay," Stiles says, not really feeling satisfied with the conversation. He likes knowing exactly what page he's on with people, especially Scott, and he usually always does, but right now he's not even sure what he's trying to ask. "Sorry. I don't wanna make things weird."

"No way, man, not even," Scott says, his smile brightening. "Things could never be weird between us."

And then as if to prove it, he leans over and kisses Stiles straight on the mouth. Just a simple, chaste kiss, then another, quicker one, then he pulls away and looks back at his book.

Stiles tries not to react weird to this, but they _rarely_ kiss. They did a few times when they were in middle school just to "practice", and then a few more times when they started up this friends with benefits deal. But Stiles can't even exactly remember the last time they kissed on the mouth. Probably not in over half a year.

"Yeah," he says, extremely belatedly.

So, that just happened. And has left Stiles feeling way more mixed up than when he started that conversation. He slips off the barstool and wanders back into the bedroom to grab his own homework. It's not due for a while but he needs something to think about. He almost wants to do it at the desk in the bedroom so he doesn't have to get distracted by Scott right now, but that's probably petty. Especially since he's done so much to distract Scott from his studying.

So he brings out his laptop and books and settles back in next to Scott and they fall into a companionable silence. Soon Stiles doesn't even know what he was worried about as any tension between them easily melts away because at least Scott's right; things could never _really_ be weird between them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on CotU: Apparently there's a buncha people missing and, like, these weird holes in the ground. Also, Scott and Stiles smooched on the mouth for once.

Later that day, Scott is in class when he gets a call from Lydia. He glances between the screen of his phone and his professor before silencing the call. It's probably important since she rarely calls him directly, but he'll wait for a second call to make sure.

The second call comes pretty quick, so he quietly gets up and ducks into the hallway. "What's up?" he answers as he continues walking to get himself outside in the open air.

"Scott McCall?" comes a deep, male voice.

"Who's this?" Scott asks harshly, his heartbeat ratcheting up.

He hears some commotion going on in the background and what sounds like Lydia's voice. There's clattering and then he hears her voice clearly, "Ugh, I swear, this guy has no social skills at all. Don't worry, Scott, I didn't get snatched away by some whack-job whose only redeeming quality is his devastating good looks."

"Okay?" Scott says, utterly confused, as he reaches the outdoor courtyard and takes a seat at a bench.

"Okay, so Allison and I were talking about the situation in Beacon Hills, and this guy just butts into our conversation and says he might know what's going on. Aside from being totally rude, I think he could be—"

There's another clattering noise, and then the guy's voice is back. "Scott McCall."

"Yes?" Scott says hesitantly, still having no idea how to handle this guy.

"Something like this happened in the town where I'm from," he says. "It happens once every so many years."

"Okay...but what's even happening?"

"People go missing and holes show up, right? It's has to be the Body of Stone."

"The what?"

"He's a stone god, luring people in to feed to—"

There's commotion on the other end again, and Scott can hear Lydia saying something sharp and fast in the background, before it gets quieter and then he hears, "Hey, Scott, it's Allison," and her voice still manages to instill a dose of calm in Scott's veins.

"Hey," he says softly. "What's going on?"

"Oh, not much, we're just in the super crowded student union with tons of people around, so not exactly the best venue for Kai to go shooting his mouth off about, you know, stuff."

"Kai?"

"The guy you were talking to. He's a little…" she makes a noncommittal noise, "But he knows what he's talking about. He's been through this before, Scott. He says he knows how to reach the person behind this."

"Okay, but are we sure that's what's happening? We don't know for sure that those holes are directly related to the disappearances."

"Kai sounds certain about it. We already called Liam and got him to send us pictures of the holes, and Kai said it's definitely what he thinks it is. He says it happens on a cycle like clockwork. He already knew about the Beacon Hills disappearances before we even talked about it, because he's been keeping an eye out for that kind of thing, waiting for it to happen."

"Huh. Well, that's great, isn't it? We can find all the missing people, right? When can we get started on this?"

"Well, I want to head for Beacon Hills as soon as possible. It's already Wednesday and none of us have classes on Friday so we wouldn't be missing much."

Scott quickly runs through his and Stiles' classes tomorrow. "Yeah, that sounds good."

"Hold on," Allison says, and he hears what sounds like her putting down the phone and talking to Kai and Lydia. After a while she comes back and says, "Yeah, let's head out tonight. Kira's in class right now but we'll fill her in. You call up Aiden and Ethan. We'll take the BART to you guys later tonight so we can carpool, yeah?"

"Wait, six people are _not_ going to fit in Stiles' Jeep. Five people tops, and that's if the three in back don't mind being really uncomfortable."

"Oh, yeah, shit. Okay, we'll figure something out. Are you busy right now?"

"Well, I've got class right now, I just stepped out."

"Oh, okay, go back to class. We'll call Aiden and Ethan and figure out it out. Talk to you later, okay?"

"Sounds good. I'll see ya."

They hang up and Scott quietly slips his way back into class, though with only fifteen minutes left, and his mind completely elsewhere. It feels kind of ridiculous to be sitting here in class when they could be out helping find Isaac and Boyd, but they need time to make preparations anyway. And they all made a pact when they started college that they wouldn't take their education for granted and skip class the instant something comes up. Only a few months into their sophomore year and it's already been really hard to keep that promise. Just a single minute could be the difference between life and death.

Once class is over, Scott's already got all his stuff in his backpack ready to go, and he calls Lydia's phone the instant he's out the door as he heads to where he knows Stiles is in class right now.

Lydia's phone rings out, so he tries Allison's. She picks up quick and says, "Hey, okay, so the twins are gonna pick up me and Kira, and Lydia and Kai are already on their way to the BART to you. You guys will probably get to Beacon Hills way before us but it'll give you time with Kai to talk and check out what's going on there."

"Yeah, okay. Okay," Scott takes a deep breath as he sits at a little sitting area outside of Stiles' class. He should be getting out in about ten minutes. "This just happened so fast."

"I know, right?" Allison laughs a little nervously. "It's a total stroke of luck that Kai even heard us and approached us about it. He seems really passionate about this whole thing."

"Yeah..." Scott says slowly. "Let's make sure this isn't some sort of trick."

"I was thinking about that, too. But he's been telling us pieces of this story about his mom fighting this thing before, and I think he's the real deal."

"Okay, good. Just keep an eye on him."

"Yeah," she says, and there's a pause before, "So, um, Scott...how've you been doing lately?"

Scott smiles. "Good. I've been good. And Stiles..." His heart jumps when he thinks about that stupid kiss he gave him earlier. He knows it weirded Stiles out, but at least the weirdness didn't seem too last long. "He's good."

Allison laughs. "Sounds... _good_. Are you sure?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well you know what they say, too many 'good's or 'fine's is usually a bad sign."

"No, no, no! I'm serious. I just, I dunno, I'm not sure what to say. How—how about you? How's things?"

"Oh, it's good," she says with another little laugh. "My classes are going really well, and we're meeting a lot of cool people."

"Oh, that's great. Anyone...you're interested in?"

"No, nothing like that. Lydia and Kira and I are all just kind of trying to focus on ourselves. It's actually really refreshing."

"That's...that's great, Allison. I'm happy to hear that."

"You're a sweet guy, Scott."

Scott laughs. "No, I just...you know, care about my friends."

He spots a couple of people start to trickle out of Stiles' class and he stands up and steps closer. "Hey, listen, Stiles' class is getting out so I gotta talk to him and fill him in."

"Oh, okay. Good luck with everything."

"You too. I'll be seeing you soon, yeah?"

"Yeah. See you."

Scott says goodbye just as Stiles comes out of the classroom door, and he hops up to him and grabs his arm to get his attention.

"Whoa, hey Scott," Stiles jerks in surprise until he sees who grabbed him.

Scott hangs up but keeps his phone in his hand as he starts walking them quickly towards their dorm. "Okay, so, Lydia and Allison found this guy who might know what's going on with the missing people," Scott explains quickly. "We're all heading over to Beacon Hills to go find them, and right now we should get to the BART station where Lydia and this guy Kai are headed."

"Um, wow, okay," Stiles says, sounding dazed as he plods along next to Scott.

Scott tries calling Lydia again and she picks up this time, and they confirm which station and when she should be arriving. They've got just enough time to head back to the dorm and grab some stuff and head out.

At the station, Lydia's already there waiting for them, right outside the fare gates so they don't have to charge their tickets.

" _There_ you are," Lydia says as she approaches them, the guy trailing behind her presumably Kai. Stiles is about to say something in greeting when Lydia grabs his wrist and says, "Walk and talk, people."

Scott and Stiles turn right around and they walk back to Stiles' Jeep.

"This is Kai, by the way," Lydia says. "Kai, Scott and Stiles," she points them out as she says their names.

"Hello," Kai says, raising a hand, and Scott and Stiles end up saying "hey" back in unison.

Kai's a tall, timid-looking Native American dude with a ton of thick black hair piled on his head in a messy bun. He's just rocking a t-shirt, nice jeans and boots, but somehow he makes it a _look_ and Stiles is almost jealous.

They get to the Jeep and Stiles knows the noise level of the road and the engine doesn't exactly encourage conversation. "Hey Scott, why don't you sit in the back with Kai so you guys can talk about this crazy shit?" He figures that way they don't have to shout at each other.

"What?" Scott looks confused for a sec, then gets it. "Oh. Okay."

He climbs into the back on the passenger side and Kai follows suit before Stiles and Lydia hop in the front.

They set out on the road and even though the circumstances are shitty, it feels good to be heading back to Beacon Hills. He already hopes that once this whole ordeal is over, he'll get to hang out with the rest of the pack and his dad and everyone.

Scott's sitting behind Stiles, but he can see him in the rearview mirror, huddled together with Kai as they talk. It shouldn't irritate Stiles but it does. Their proximity makes them look way too intimate for two people who just met. Stiles notices a lock of Kai's hair fell out of his bun and is resting on Scott's shoulder, what the actual fuck. Stiles has to just look away and focus on the road.

After a while, Scott gets a call on the phone and Stiles can't hear it, but then he leans forward and tells him it was Allison, confirming she and Kira are on their way with Aiden and Ethan. Stiles fights back a shiver at Scott's voice in his ear.

The drive takes a couple hours. Stiles chats with Lydia every once in a while but nothing major. He's glad they're in a place where she actually voluntarily talks to him, and he doesn't flip his shit anymore when it happens.

It's late when Stiles finally pulls up to Derek's loft. The five bajillion werewolves in there must've heard them pull up because before they can even climb out of the car, Derek and Malia come out to greet them. Stiles figures it has something to do with making sure Kai checks out before letting him in.

Apparently he passes because Derek lets them in without hesitation. In the loft, a little bit of chatter starts up as people exchange greetings and a few hugs before everyone settles in, sitting wherever available, even if it's the floor or that dubious bed out in the open of the main living area.

Derek pulls out some documents he says he got from Stiles' dad, detailing all the missing people and the investigation thus far. They all look at the pictures of these people, trying to memorize them so they can try and save them too. When the conversation hits a natural lull, they switch gears.

"So, Kai," Scott says, gesturing to him. "Could you tell everyone what you told me about the Body of Stone?"

"Well...it began over a century ago. My great, great grandfather, Kaknu, defeated the Body of Stone in a huge battle, and the rocks from his remains dispersed across the land. They thought that was the end of it, and for a long time, it was. Just a few decades ago, someone rebuilt the Body of Stone. They must have spent an incredible amount of time collecting the rocks, probably from the very moment he had been defeated. We still don't know who did this, but with the Body of Stone back, he needs his servants back. And those servants need to be fed."

Stiles and a few others exchange uncomfortable looks with each other, none of them really sure what's going on yet but they definitely don't like the sound of it.

"Uh, I don't get it," Stiles says hesitantly. "Where is this Body of Stone? And how do we know he's related to the people missing from Beacon Hills?"

"Liam sent those pictures of the holes in the ground," Kai says. "There's no mistake. Those are the holes made by the servants when they suck their victims down through the earth. That's where the Body of Stone lives."

Stiles shudders. "He lives underground?"

"Wait a second," Lydia pipes up suddenly. "Why are the holes so small, if whole bodies were dragged through them?"

"That's part of how to identify the location of the Body of Stone," Kai explains patiently. "His soil ceilings are soft and pliant. It reacts differently to manipulation than regular dirt. It's part of what the servants can use against their victims."

"Who are these 'servants'?" Cora asks.

"They used to be human," Kai replies, eyes downcast. "But the Body of Stone chips away at their souls and replaces it with something else. Every human the Body of Stone captures quickly turns into either a servant or its dinner."

"Is it too late?" Scott asks desperately. "Boyd and Isaac went missing _days_ ago!"

"It's impossible to say," Kai responds. "They could've been eaten. Or they could have been stored away for later. Or they could have started the process of becoming a servant."

While a few people start talking amongst themselves about this, Derek gets up and approaches the front door to the loft right before someone knocks on it. He opens it and Aiden, Ethan, Allison and Kira spill in and look around and greet everyone and they spend some time catching them up on what Kai said.

"But what does the Body of Stone _want?_ " Allison asks.

"As far as I know? Territory. The Body of Stone is constantly working to expand his underground network. This is what he uses his servants for, mostly. Digging and building. And fighting to keep any intruders out."

"So...I take it it's not gonna be easy to get in," Stiles muses.

"No," Kai confirms. "Humans, even werewolves, aren't able to reach it on their own. But I can get down there, and open up a gateway for you all. But the moment we enter, the servants will be after us."

"That's standard fare for us, really."

"How will you get down there?" asks Malia.

"Like my great, great grandfather Kaknu, my body can take the shape of a falcon. The speed I can achieve in that form is what it takes to pierce through the soil and come out on the other side."

Everyone's quiet for a while as no one can think of any other questions. Stiles looks around at everyone's solemn faces. Not a single one of them looks like they're about to back out of the dangerous situation, and it still amazes Stiles the strength of their hodgepodge pack.

"When can we get started?" Cora asks.

Kai says, "Show me where that clearing is."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on CotU: So this dude Kai says all these missing people are getting fed to some stone guy's servants, how sick is that.

They all pile into their cars, and Scott goes with Derek and Cora and Kai to talk about their plan of action or whatever so Stiles ends up with Malia in the front and Lydia, Erica and Liam shoved in back. Liam looks torn between super uncomfortable and super thrilled to be crammed in between two of the hottest girls on the planet, and glancing at them occasionally in the rearview mirror amuses Stiles a little and reminds him there's still simple problems on this earth that don't involve death or dismemberment.

"How are you doing, Stiles?" Malia asks, and Stiles glances at her earnest face.

"Um...I dunno, good? As good as you can be while about to try and save some friends from the underworld?"

Malia reaches out and squeezes his thigh comfortingly, and Stiles shoots her a small smile.

Stiles follows Derek's car all the way there and the drive is shorter than he expected. They park off the side of a dirt road and Stiles' nerves start to really flare up as he steps out of the car and lets everyone out of the back. He always keeps a couple baseball bats in the back of his car these days so he grabs them and hands one to Lydia. They all follow in a crowd into the forest with Liam and Derek at the top since they know where it is, Kai and Scott not far behind. Stiles trails near the back, full of dread. After what feels like forever, walking in eerie silence, they finally reach a clearing and spread out to look around at the holes in the ground. Kai immediately crouches down next to one of them, touches it gently and starts muttering to Scott about it. 

Then Kai stands up and addresses the crowd. "I can take one person down with me to help set up the portal between these worlds."

"I'll go," Scott says, face set with determination.

Kai nods at him and grabs his shoulders, and starts moving him around, Scott stumbling over his feet to keep up. Kai steps back and surveys the ground before moving Scott over a few more steps. "Stay right there."

Before Scott can answer, Kai whips back around and tells everyone, "This shouldn't take long."

Then he takes off sprinting away from them, then just as suddenly his shape bursts and reforms into a huge bird, like a falcon, but bigger than Stiles could've imagined, and he soars high above the trees. Everyone's eyes go skyward as they watch him circle the clearing a few times, going higher and higher, before launching into a dive right above them. Stiles looks down at Scott who's staring at Kai in mild terror, then suddenly looks down to meet Stiles' gaze. They hold eye contact, conveying a thousand emotions in the few short seconds before Kai swoops down and somehow engulfs Scott in his wings and then they're both gone in a flurry of feathers and dirt, a small hole just like the other seven left in the spot where Scott had been standing.

The pack exchanges anxious glances, and Stiles hears a few nerve-wracked laughs, but he just stares at the ground where Scott vanished, dumb-struck. The chilly, night air suffocates him. He feels utterly helpless.

The wait is cruel. The others start to make chit chat but Stiles just fiddles with his bat nervously. This heart thuds against his ribcage with every passing second. He flinches hard when he feels someone touch his shoulder, then looks over to see Lydia giving him a small, sad smile. Stiles lifts the corner of his mouth in response and her hand slips off his shoulder but she stays close.

Stiles catches Liam checking his wristwatch.

"How long has it been?" he asks.

"Just three minutes."

He says _just_ like it's hardly anything but it's the longest three minutes of Stiles entire life.

The three minutes doubles, then triples, and Stiles wants to tear his hair out.

"This is taking way too long," Stiles says to no one. "It shouldn't take this long."

No one says anything.

Five minutes later, Stiles says, "Kai said it wouldn't take long."

"It's fine," Derek says.

Stiles goes quiet, his eyes fixed on that new hole in the ground.

"You know," Lydia suddenly breaks the silence, and Stiles is glad for something else to pay attention, "Before we all go throwing ourselves into an underground realm, shouldn't we pick some of us to stay behind, so we have someone who knows where we all went?"

"Are you volunteering?" Ethan asks a little acidly.

"Well, _no_ , I just thought—"

"Then who would do it? Who'd be willing to stay behind and do _nothing_ —"

"Everyone, relax," Derek calls out. "It was a good idea, Lydia, but I already let Deaton know where we are tonight, while we were waiting for you all to get here. He'll let others know if we're gone for too long."

Lydia nods a few times and Ethan looks placated, and they all quieten back down.

After yet another five minutes go by, Stiles feels like his heart is going to beat out of his chest. It's deafening to him and he can only imagine how loud it is to all the werewolves around him.

Stiles says quietly, "I don't like this, you guys," barely keeping a handle on his panic.

"Calm down, Stiles," Derek says evenly, and Stiles is about to flip his shit about how no one else is flipping their shit. "Twenty minutes isn't very long for something like this."

"What if this is a trap?" Stiles' voice starts to rise. "We don't know shit about Kai! He could, he could be—"

"We heard his heartbeat," Derek says. "He's okay."

"It could be a trick! It _has_ to be, it shouldn't _take_ this long!"

"And how do you know?" Aiden asks as he takes a step towards Stiles. "How long does it take _you_ when you open up a magic underground portal, huh?"

"You know what, you have _no_ —" Stiles starts out, moving closer to Aiden, but Malia wraps an arm around his chest from behind and holds him back. Ethan tugs his brother back too, and Stiles takes a deep breath and turns around to look at Malia. She puts a gentle hand on his face and rubs his cheek with her thumb, her other arm still loosely wrapped around him. He sags against her and gives her a hug, and she strokes a hand back and forth across his back. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and is just about to say something to apologize for what a wreck he is when suddenly they all hear and feel a low rumble under their feet.

Stiles jerks away from Malia to watch as a soft, glowing light begins to trickle out of the now eight holes in the ground. The one Kai and Scott disappeared into starts to expand, dirt rapidly falling down through the opening, and the people closest take a few steps back. The light expands and lights up their surroundings before disappearing and plunging them in darkness as Kai comes shooting out in his bird form, then landing on the ground as a human. He stands up straighter and says, "Come on," before jumping back down the hole.

Stiles goes up to the edge of it and looks down but it's jet black. He jumps anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on CotU: So they opened up a way to this underground place to save Boyd and Isaac. It took a long time and Stiles flipped out about it a little.

Stiles lands clumsily and rolls a few times, clinging tightly to his bat as he tries to gather his bearings in this darkness.

"Stiles?"

He recognizes the voice as Scott's instantly and relief floods through him.

"Scott," he chokes out through a mouthful of dirt. "Scott."

"Hey, buddy," Scott grabs his arms and helps him up. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Stiles groans, spitting onto the ground a few times. "You?"

"Yeah."

Someone falls right on Stiles and knocks him back to the ground, completely winding him.

"What the fuck," Stiles wheezes, trying to shove the person off.

"Sorry," says Derek's voice and he gets off and tugs Stiles to his feet like he's a rag doll.

The two of them get out of the way for the next person who jumps down, and their numbers gradually increase until they're all huddled together in the dark.

"This way," Kai says suddenly, and Stiles already forgot he was even here.

Everyone leaps to action, or so Stiles assumes by the sound of footsteps and the feeling as a few people brush past him.

"Wait, I can't see," Stiles says, incredulous that anyone else can. "Don't tell me werewolves have night vision, too?"

"Oh, uh...is it, like, pitch black, or...?" Scott's voice comes from his right, and he feels a hand on his shoulder, guiding him forward. Stiles reluctantly takes a few steps and Scott says, "It's okay, I've got you."

Stiles walks a little more confidently at that. "Yeah, I got nothing. Can't see my hand in front of my face."

"Well, shit," Scott sighs. "It's not much better for me but it's enough to see shapes and stuff. And then smell fills in a lot of the rest."

"Allison? Lydia?" Stiles calls their names for input.

"Actually, I'm good," Lydia sounds pleasantly surprised. "I just thought it was normal to see this well in low light."

"Well, I can't see either," Allison says, but she doesn't sound nearly as afraid as Stiles feels. Go figure; navigating through pitch blackness was probably part of her freaky Argent family training.

"Well, what do we _do_?" Stiles asks frantically. "Oh, wait, I got it—"

Stiles tucks the bat under his arm and fumbles in his pocket for his phone. He turns on the flash, which lights things up like a giant spotlight and causes a few irritated groans at the sudden brightness. Stiles has about a split second in which he feels triumphant before he actually sees his surroundings and wants to shit a fucking brick.

They're standing on a narrow bridge made out of dirt, with endless darkness on either side indicating an extremely long fall if they fell off the edge. No railings, no nothing, just a four or five foot wide stretch of fucking dirt that extends maybe fifty feet in front of them before disappearing into an opening in a dirt wall. Stiles has no idea how the hell they even managed to land on this thing; Kai's portal must've been right directly above it and Stiles hadn't fallen off out of pure dumb luck.

"We're only at the uppermost level of the underground," Kai says, and Stiles turns his phone on him to illuminate him. "There are many, many floors beneath us, not to mention expanding outward. If you want to find your friends, we have to split up."

"No, no, no, no," Stiles instantly says, flailing his hands and waving the light around everywhere. "That's the absolute number one line people say before the goofy side characters get killed. And since Scott obviously became the main character when he got bit, I am not willing to take that kinda risk."

"Were you the main character before I was bit?" Scott's eyebrows furrow in mildly offended confusion.

Stiles claps a hand on his shoulder. "Of course I was."

Kai doesn't reply in any way, just turns and keeps walking towards the end of the bridge, and everyone follows. Scott keeps a hand on Stiles' arm to guide him even though he doesn't really need it anymore but he ain't complaining.

Inside the opening at the end of the bridge is a large, dome-like room and the good news is it feels really nice to not be a foot away from being able to plummet to your death. The bad news is the floor is strewn with all different kinds of bones, big and small, human and animal, some of them embedded in the dirt and looking like they've been there forever, others loose getting kicked around as everyone shuffles in. Then there's three holes in the floor of the room, and Stiles is getting real sick of holes.

"I'd fly down there to try and get and idea of our surroundings," Kai says as he peers down one of them. "But I don't want to alert the servants."

Shit, Stiles almost forgot about those guys. "Can't, can't you just, like, sniff them out?" He asks Kai, but he's not really sure where werefalcons fall on the supernatural olfactory abilities scale, so he looks around at all the werewolves. "Anyone?"

"It's pointless," Kai says. "The servants are one with the earth. However, I would recommend trying to sniff out your missing packmates. If they haven't already been eaten or swayed by the Body of Stone."

Stiles frowns at how casually Kai says this. "What about light? Should I turn this off?"

"There's no need for sight in this place, so the servants quickly go blind during the transition, using the soil to sense their surroundings instead."

Stiles' jaw drops in horror. He hopes against all hope that neither Isaac nor Boyd have gotten anywhere near this servant transition crap and haven't started going blind or anything. He pushes it to the back of his mind as best as possible and steps closer to one of the holes. He shines his phone light down it, and a few others follow suit, taking out their phones and crowding around together as they look down the other holes. They shift around as they all try and look through all three.

The holes look just big enough for a person to fit through. The shapes of the mouths are organic, obviously crafted for use and not for looks. The walls of the tunnel burrow, crooked and uneven, for several feet before dropping off into darkness.

"Okay," Scott says. "How should we split everyone up?"

"What," Stiles says flatly.

"We're obviously splitting up."

"What, no, didn't you hear anything I said about splitting up?"

"God, Stiles, grow _up_ ," Erica says suddenly, coming up behind him and pushing him out of the way before jumping down the hole on the left.

Stiles and a few others rush up to the edge to watch as Erica falls, the light of her phone illuminating a circle around her on the walls of the tunnel, before diffusing when it opens up to a larger area. The light gets alarmingly small before they finally hear the thud and grunt as she lands. There's a pause in which Stiles is terrified she got hurt or worse, before she's up and sprinting down a pathway until she's out of the range of sight from the hole.

"Yeah, that definitely doesn't look survivable for humans," Kira says anxiously.

"Let's check out another one," Aiden says before jumping into the one on the right, Ethan quickly following, and a few people follow after Erica at the same time. Stiles doesn't bother watching after the twins since they don't have a any sort of light to see them by, but it isn't long before one of them calls up to them that it's a slope that's completely safe to go down. Right after he does, Stiles feels a rumbling underneath his feet and buzzing through his head.

"He shouldn't have done that," Kai says. "Let's get going."

He jumps down the middle one. Stiles looks frantically at the remaining people: Scott, Derek, Liam, Lydia, Allison, and Kira. Cora and Malia must've gone after Erica.

"I should stick with Kai," Scott says, already approaching that hole.

"I'll go with you," Stiles says instantly.

"We don't know if it's safe for humans, so you, Lydia, and Allison take the one the twins went down," Scott says before jumping down the middle one.

"Scott—" Stiles stares after him for a second before whipping around to look at the others.

"If we want to find Boyd and Isaac as soon as possible," Derek says, looking at him sternly, "We have to take this seriously."

"I _am_ taking this—"

Derek jumps down the middle one before he can finish.

"I'm going after Erica," Liam says before jumping.

"We've got to go with the twins," Allison says to Kira, who nods.

"Good luck," Kira says. "Be careful."

She jumps after Scott, and Allison jumps in the hole next over soon after. Lydia squeezes Stiles' shoulder real quick before following after Allison. Stiles jumps too before he can think about it.

He slides down the dirt tunnel for what must be only seconds but is still definitely long enough to wonder when the hell it's going to end. He plops out onto something soft and squishy and hears a few yelps.

"Stiles, get off!" Lydia squeals as she tries to shove him off. All it really does is push him up against a wall next to them. Stiles shines his phone around to try and understand their surroundings, and it looks like a very small pocket just big enough for all of them to hunch over together within the dirt tunnel. The tunnel extends beyond the pocket but it looks like it's only big enough to crawl through.

Allison drags herself out from under Lydia and Stiles and crouches down next to the tunnel. "Let's keep going," she says, about to start crawling, before Ethan grabs her shoulder and eases her aside.

"Let us go first," he says.

Allison looks like she's about to protest but Ethan just shoves himself into the tunnel headfirst, Aiden quickly following, then Allison. Lydia's hot on her best friend's heels and Stiles shoves his bat down the back of his hoodie, above his shirt, so he can have his hands free as he goes scrambling in after her.

The prickling fear in Stiles' chest grows and grows with every foot they crawl, taking them deeper and deeper into the unknown. It's suffocating and claustrophobic just to be in a space where he can't stand up, let alone one of an indeterminate length or destination. He's not sure if he wants to go as fast as he can, stop completely and shut down, or give up and head _back_ as fast as he can instead. But everyone in front of him seems pretty committed to slowly plodding ahead and it's easiest to try and run on autopilot and just follow along.

Stiles' arms are nearly numb from crawling when Lydia accidentally kicks a chunk of dirt into his face. Sputtering, he just tries to spit it all out and can't even gather the energy to make some sort of snarky remark about it.

"Sorry, Stiles," Lydia says, sounding equally devoid of witty banter.

"S'fine," Stiles mumbles, then his elbow sinks into a huge dip in the tunnel. "Hey, wait."

Stiles stops and turns his phone light onto the dip. There's a black hole the size of a quarter at the bottom.

"There's something here," Stiles says, digging into the hole with one hand. It opens up easily, widening as the dirt slides down the hole like sand in an hour glass. Then a huge chunk falls away, and then Stiles is falling as the floor drops out from underneath him.

Stiles lets out a startled shout and flails around, before focusing on keeping a death grip on his phone, the only tool he has to navigate this place. He feels his bat slip out of his shirt but there's nothing he can do about that now. Phone held tight, he doesn't try to use it lest he accidentally drop it. He can't see anything by its shaky light right now anyway. He slowly extends his limbs as he falls, trying to reach any sort of surface to give him any idea of his chances here, but he doesn't feel a thing. Until finally, his phone-less hand catches on soft dirt and he tries to dig his fingers into it to slow down but he's going too fast and his fingers just straighten back out immediately. So he presses his palm against it and it hurts like hell but it starts to feel like it's sloping towards him, and he tries pressing his whole arm against it, swings his legs and tries to dig his shoes into it, until he's suddenly tumbling, somersaulting over and over again down a steep slope, rolling every which way, grunting and groaning with each impact of his body against the earth. He loses all sense of direction until he slams into a wall, then collapses several feet further down onto the ground.

His stomach churning, his head swimming, his lungs gasping for air, it's all Stiles can do to just lie there for a while. He rolls from his stomach onto his side so he stops breathing up dirt, and his chest heaves, forcing out a cough every few seconds, as he stares blankly at the light of his cell phone that must've been knocked out of his hands and landed a few feet away from him. He wonders if anyone tried to follow him, and he hopes they didn't. His fall could've ended up a whole lot worse and he would go nuts if someone got hurt like that because of him. He doesn't hear anything, though, so he figures they did the right thing and kept going.

The instant he feels slightly more collected, he crawls towards his phone and grabs it before standing up. He relishes in being able to take an upright position, even though his body hurts all over and the skin of the hand he pressed against the wall while falling is shredded up and covered in dirt and blood, stinging like all hell. He rubs it on the back of the thigh of his jeans but it doesn't really help any.

Looking around, Stiles sees his bat lying several feet away from him. Silently rejoicing, he grabs it before surveying the rest of his surroundings. He thanks his lucky stars when he catches sight of an opening in the wall — the only visible exit from the area. It's maybe ten feet above him but he doesn't even care. He just starts digging footholds into the wall, carving them out with his fingernails. His bat tucked back under his arm, he climbs as he goes, and is soon able to pull himself up onto the floor of the opening, which turns out to be a sort of hallway, just tall enough to stand in if he hunches a little, and it twists and winds so it's hard to see very far down the hall at any given time. He advances slowly, peering around corners, ill at ease over the lack of anyone around, good _or_ bad. Just when he starts to let his guard down a little, he sees movement on the floor. He freezes and shines his light on it and jumps in shock when he sees what looks like a human on their stomach, arms and legs undulating unnaturally to move forward slowly. Lips curling in disgust and fear, Stiles takes a few steps back, when the figure stops and flicks their head up to look at Stiles with wide, milky eyes.

Still stepping back, Stiles trips over some bones on the ground and barely saves himself from falling flat on his ass. It has to be one of the servants. Stiles isn't sure what he was imagining but this definitely wasn't it. Kai sure wasn't kidding when he said the servants were one with the earth. This one is absolutely covered in mud, their long, scraggly hair caked with it, and Stiles can't be sure but he thinks they're naked.

His mind races as he tries to figure out how to react, but before he can decide, the servant suddenly jumps into a crouch before leaping, coming at Stiles, hands first. Stiles yelps in surprise and tries to move out of the way, but the servant's hands quickly wrap tightly around his neck. He just drops his bat and phone, his hands flying to the servant's wrists, trying to pry them off him.

Inane things start to fly through his head, like how just the other day he was scrolling through some blog and read a post about defensive maneuvers for people to use if they get attacked, and breaking out of a chokehold was one of them, but of course he can't remember it now. Or he thinks of what an insane place this would be to die and how they'd never find his body and his dad would never be able to get that closure. God, his dad. He'll be all alone if Stiles dies. He can't let that happen.

Quickly coming to the realization that he doesn't have much time until he's either unconscious or dead, Stiles has to think of something because he clearly isn't about to overpower this servant. He chokes down as much air as he can draw through his squeezed airway before going completely limp in their grip. They give one last good squeeze before they let go and he flops onto the ground. He tries not to gasp for air through his newly reopened windpipes but it's not easy and he still ends up making some raspy noises. He hopes with every fiber of his being that the servant just figures he's unconscious and his body's doing it involuntarily. At least the latter's true either way, so it's got to be believable.

The air is still for a long pause until the servant suddenly grabs his ankles and start to drag him across the floor. He tries not to sputter through the mouthful of dirt he gets and instead just slowly turns his head to the side, arms dangling in front of him like dead weights. Before they're out of range, Stiles grabs his phone and bat back, one in either hand, hoping that the dragging of his body is enough to cover up the movement so the servant doesn't notice.

It's probably stupid to just let himself be dragged along to god knows where but he can't suppress the curiosity at where he'll end up. It has to be somewhere important. After what had felt like forever wandering through this labyrinth, getting taken somewhere by a servant feels like real progress.

The servant jumps over a ledge and Stiles struggles to remain silent as he plummets through the air with them, then he suddenly feels like he's being squeezed through a tiny tube as dirt presses against him from all sides, then it's over and he lands in a heap on the ground. Moving as little as possible, unsure how much the servants can sense through the dirt or their hearing, Stiles tilts his phone light so he can watch the servant as they crawl towards a wall maybe twenty feet in front of them, then slowly burrows through it until Stiles can no longer see them.

He waits, motionless, until he feels like he's completely out of earshot with room to spare before sitting up and shining his phone around him, cursing in surprise when the light falls on four bodies lying on the ground. At first he thinks they're servants, covered in dirt as they are, but they haven't reacted to Stiles' presence at all so he wonders if maybe they're dead. He creeps closer, and curses again when he realizes two of them are Isaac and Boyd, their eyes closed and faces slack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, hope you're all enjoying the story so far. Updates might slow down a little over the next few weeks, sorry about that!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on CotU: So now they're in the underground and had to split into a few groups, and Stiles went and got himself separated from everyone but at least he found Boyd and Isaac.

Dropping his phone and bat on the ground, Stiles kneels in between Isaac and Boyd and grabs their shoulders, shaking them. "Isaac?" he asks in a harsh whisper. "Boyd? C'mon, guys, c'mon..."

He hears a quiet groan, and Stiles' heart leaps into his throat. "Boyd? Isaac?"

A chilling voice rasps out something unintelligible and Stiles can't tell whose it is.

"Hey, it's me, it's Stiles," he says. "Can you hear me?"

"Stiles?" he hears, and he thinks it might be Isaac. "They got you too, huh?"

"No, no, it's okay, we're here to save you guys," Stiles says in a rush. "The rest of the pack is here somewhere, we're gonna get you out of here."

Isaac sounds like he laughs, and Stiles isn't really sure what that means. He grabs his phone and shines it on them to check for injuries, and Isaac makes an irritated noise and covers his eyes with a hand. Stiles looks over and sees Boyd do the same, and Stiles heaves a sigh of relief at that since it's the first confirmation he's seen that Boyd's still alive. He doesn't see any surface wounds but it's still obvious they're not doing well by their gaunt faces.

"Are you guys hurt?"

"Nothing beyond your standard dehydration and malnourishment."

"Can you cut the snark while I'm trying to save your life?"

"Yeah, good luck with that," Isaac mutters before closing his eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't you think if we could get out of here we would've done it already?"

"Well...sure, but..."

"Look, the walls are made out of stone. And the floor, and the ceiling. The only time it changes is when the dirt people come in and put in a new captive or take an old one out. And they use the dirt to bind us so we can't escape when they come in. It's pretty cut and dry. We're gonna die here like those guys over there, and then they'll cart our bodies off somewhere."

Stiles huffs out a breath in disbelief, glancing at the two people lying next to Boyd. He gets up and surveys the room — a low-ceilinged dome, and sure enough, when Stiles knocks his knuckles against it, it's hard as a rock. "Well...we just have to wait for one of those dirt people to come back. I can try and take 'em by surprise."

Isaac doesn't say anything. Stiles thinks it's a pretty solid plan. These guys don't look like they've put up a fight in a while, so maybe the servants will have let their guard down around them. And they're probably not expecting Stiles and his spastic energy. Stiles steps back over to Boyd and Isaac and slowly sits down between them, pulling his bat onto his lap and picking at the handle of it. He should stay reasonably still so he doesn't alert the servants to any funny business; he still has no idea how powerful their dirt-senses are, whether the slightest shift against the ground can be picked up from very far away. So he sits and waits. And it's not really until he's begun sitting and waiting that he realizes he has no idea how long he's going to have to wait. If the servants _only_ come to put in a person or take on out, then it could be an extremely long time. Like, a day or more. It could be a lot sooner, though. Obviously he doesn't want any of his friends in danger but it'd be really helpful if one of them got caught by a servant and brought here real soon.

He's been waiting a while when Stiles hears a huge, ground-shaking rumble. He whips around, looking with his phone light, but there doesn't seem to be any change except for some dirt sprinkling down on them from the ceiling. He looks back at Boyd and Isaac and they've got their eyes back open but haven't moved. They must be so weak and exhausted; Stiles isn't sure if werewolves can go longer than humans without food or water, he figures they probably can, but it's still been such a long time. Then the rumbling flares up again, but this one starts quiet and grows louder and louder. Suddenly, two servants drop down into the room from the ceiling, but instead of giving Stiles or the others even a glance, they just burrow straight into the ground.

"I'm going after them!" Stiles exclaims to Isaac and Boyd as he shoves his phone in his pocket and his bat back into the back of his hoodie before launching at the spot where the servants just disappeared into. The ground is still soft and he carves into it with his fingers, desperately struggling to navigate through the earth quick enough to keep up. It's probably out of sheer blind determination that he manages to get through, not letting himself think about anything other than to keep moving, instead of thinking about how long this could take or where this could possibly lead or how this might've been an extremely stupid impulse.

Eventually, after his hands are numb and his muscles are screaming with fatigue, he feels the dirt get even softer before his hand flails awkwardly through thin air before catching on dirt again. He pulls himself through a little more and then he's suddenly falling, hurtling through the air and crashing hard into the ground. Feeling utterly disoriented, he slowly climbs to his feet and tries to find his bearings for a second.

He flashes his light around and a strangled noise leaves his throat when the light lands on two stone pillars in front of him, that he quickly realizes are moving and are in fact attached to a giant stone body, long arms attached to where it looks like shoulders, but there's no head on top. It's got to be the Body of Stone.

Stumbling backwards, Stiles reaches for the bat in the back of his shirt but it's not there. Cursing, he looks around on the ground and spots it maybe ten feet away — it must've fallen out and rolled. He runs to grab it, and at the same time, the enormous creature stomps its foot, shaking the entire ground, unbalancing Stiles and throwing him down into his side.

"Fuck," he gasps, trying to quickly upright himself again, before launching himself at one of the stone legs, pulling his bat back and putting everything he has into a swing against it. All it does is jar his arms painfully, the blow seemingly doing a total of absolutely nothing to the creature, just leaving a few deep scratches on Stiles' bat.

The Body of Stone lifts its foot again, and Stiles just starts sprinting, putting himself behind the creature, and while it moves slow and Stiles puts some good distance between them, he still gets knocked off his feet at the small quake that the Body of Stone causes.

Without a head, this Body of Stone guy must be blind like the servants, Stiles thinks, so he keeps flashing his light around for something, anything that could possibly help him. He spots an opening in the wall, some two hundred feet away from him, just as the Body of Stone starts turning around to come at him. He starts running towards it, until he notices two servants creeping in through it, and he skids to a stop. Then he remembers his bat'll still work against them, so he keeps running, as fast as his legs will carry him, until they burn with exertion, and he knocks one in the skull as hard as he can before he can let himself think about it, and as they drop limply to the ground he goes for the other one, but it grabs his bat mid-swing and rips it out of his hands.

"What the fuck!" he shouts in panic, backing away as the servant throws his bat on the ground and slowly approaches Stiles. He swings his phone around until he sees the glinting reflection of its light against his metal bat, and he throws himself in that direction, narrowly missing the servant as it tries to grab him. So preoccupied with the servants, he forgets about the Body of Stone until right at the moment he snatches his bat up again, he sees a stone arm swing at him and he freezes in place, paralyzed in terror as he watches the gnarled stone fingers miss him and hit the ground in front of him, gouging a deep gash into the soft soil floor.

Panting out a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding, he bolts forward to get behind the Body of Stone again. Glancing behind him, he sees a few more servants trickle in, and he knows he's fucked. With no way out with the freaky servants and their super spidey senses, he has no idea what to do except survive for as long as possible. Maybe if he draws everyone to one corner of the room, he can clear the exit and make another break for it.

"Hey, c'mon!" he yells, smacking his bat on the ground and dragging it in the dirt, swinging it in arcs as he slowly backs up. "Over here, you pieces of shit!"

The servants react quickly; some of them run, some of them do that horrible floor-crawl thing, and Stiles books it as far from the entrance as he can. "Come and get me!"

His back against the wall now, he realizes this might not've been the smartest idea in the world. The servants coming at him, the Body of Stone lugging along behind them, he readies his bat, hands trembling. He waits until the very last second before lunging, weaving in between a few servants, thwacking one that comes at him, and he's clear, he's going to make it, all he has to do is run in between the giant pillar legs in front of him and it's a straight shot to the exit.

He doesn't see the Body of Stone swipe its hand at him again, doesn't understand the brutal collision that sends him flying across the room, and blacks out before he even hits the ground.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on CotU: It turns out Stiles couldn't bust in and save Boyd and Isaac immediately like he'd hoped, and then he met the Body of Stone and got totally creamed by it, so, y'know, things are looking pretty grim and stuff.

Scott wishes they didn't have to split up, but he knows it's the most logical answer to finding Boyd and Isaac as fast as possible. The drive to help and protect his pack is so strong, he'd do whatever it takes. Like jumping down weird holes in the earth at the word of a complete stranger. It was hardest to have to split up with Stiles, but it's just the way the chips fell, and they both understand that.

The hole they had to go through drops down to a huge open area that seems totally empty aside from more bones strewn on the ground, so Kai flies around for a while, looking for all possible pathways, but they only find one. The going is pretty quick; the tunnels are long and winding but they all intertwine and splitting themselves up to investigate always ends in them reconvening soon enough.

"I feel like we've just been walking in circles," Kira groans, coming to a stop and leaning forward, putting her hands on her knees. "How do we know we're really even getting anywhere?"

"It's not circles," Kai says, staring into space like he's trying to listen for something. "The underground is a labyrinth, meant to trick those who can't travel through the dirt."

"How are we supposed to find anything, then?" Scott asks, exasperated, before instantly going silent when he hears a strange noise from far away. "What was that?" he whispers.

No one answers, they all just hone in and try to listen, too. It sounds like some sort of rustling, and a crunching, like stepping on gravel. Scott creeps forward, trying to minimize his own noise output as he looks down the tunnel in front of him, for any sign of movement.

"Scott, behind us!" Kira suddenly shouts, piercing through Scott's hearing. He whips around and pushes through the group crowded up behind him, until he can see the movement of at least three of what must be the servants Kai talked about. They're slow, their movements disjointed and eerie, but Scott's not about to underestimate them, especially not when he realizes there's even more of them trickling in behind the initial three.

"Run!" Kai suddenly shouts, and Scott figures Kai's judgment is the best to trust for anything pertaining to this underground world, so he quickly turns and hightails it down the tunnel, with the sounds of the others following suit behind him. He follows the curves and turns of the tunnels, mindlessly trying to just put distance between them and the servants. Before he can really register it, there's the sound of more footsteps ahead of him, but he doesn't react fast enough before he's crashing headlong into a group of bodies.

Unable to see clearly through the darkness and terrified that he's just led his friends to more servants, he yells, "Wait!" to the others behind him at the same time as the people he hit make decidedly human-sounding noises of distress at the impact, and then Scott suddenly recognizes the wave of scents hitting him.

"Oh, it's you guys," he says in surprise, picking out the scents of Erica, Cora, Malia, and Liam.

"Scott!" Erica sounds shocked. "How did you...?"

"Erica?" Kira asks from behind Scott. "Who else is there?"

A few of them turn back on their phone lights and they all take stock of each other and who's there. They recount to each other what their side went through but it sounds like Erica's group didn't make any more progress than Scott's. With few other options available to them, they eventually continue their exploration together, searching split roads down to their dead ends faster with more people in the group. They continue like this for a long time, hours, the task not so much physically draining as it is mentally, before Scott suddenly picks up on a new noise. He shushes everyone, and they instantly fall silent.

"I hear voices," he breathes, barely audible but to the werewolves.

He creeps forward, using his boosted werewolf vision to look carefully as he eases around the bends of the tunnel. Then it clicks as he recognizes the voices, his body relaxing as he speeds up, his pack sensing the ease in tension and following suit.

"Allison, Lydia," he calls as he approaches them. 

"Scott?" he hears Allison call back. "Oh, thank god."

She gives Scott a hug as their groups converge, and they quickly exchange their sides of what happened, but it looks like Allison's group didn't find anything either.

"But you already met up with Erica and everyone," Allison observes. "These tunnels must intersect a lot."

Lydia, Kira and Malia all start exchanging details about which directions their group went in to try and make sense of the area, while Scott looks around and finally realizes what's wrong.

"Where's Stiles," he asks flatly.

Everyone goes quiet, and the people from Stiles' group exchange worried glances.

"Scott," Allison says lightly. "It was just one of those things, we couldn't—"

"What happened," he grits out, his eyes flashing red.

"He just sort of — fell through the ground," Allison explains, wringing her hands. "There was no way to — he could still be out there, somewhere. But it looked like an awful long way down, Scott, he had his phone light on but it just...after a while, it just disappeared."

Allison puts a hand on Scott's arm, Lydia sniffles, the twins look away, and the rest of them just sort of stand there, shellshocked.

Scott clenches his jaw. "Let's keep going," he says stiffly, pushing his way through everyone to do exactly that. The pack exchanges looks with each other, unsure of how to take this non-reaction. He glances back and then and goes, "C'mon!" and everyone springs into action, following along as they try and explore new territory.

The rage and terror and tension and adrenalin that now simmers under his skin fuels him as he sprints forward, his mind going into overdrive as he throws the range of his senses as far as possible, taking in everything his eyes, ears and nose can tell him. If Stiles is still in here somewhere, Scott _will_ find him. He filters out any unnecessary input coming from his senses and tries to focus on Stiles. Scott could probably pull up the memory of Stiles' scent in his sleep, but he's not catching the slightest whiff right now. So all he can do is keep going. He refuses to leave this place until he knows what happened to his best friend.

It feels like it takes hours of exploring until Scott catches something. He can smell the blood the instant it's in range. Unfortunately, he's well acquainted with the smell of his blood, and it immediately triggers alarms in his head the way the blood of the rest of his pack doesn't — because Stiles is human, and whether he likes it or not he's more fragile than the rest, and Scott has always, if nearly subconsciously, prioritized Stiles' safety.

So he skids to a stop and hurtles himself in the direction of the smell, his mind honed in on the single point. He barely pays attention to his pack racing along behind him as he turns corner after corner, following his senses instinctually, when finally they reach an opening to a gigantic room, and the smell of blood hits him like a wave. Using his heightened werewolf vision he can make out Stiles' location and he can hear his heartbeat, but it's weak. He's crumpled in a heap on the ground, a group of servants hovering over him, and Scott immediately starts running over to him before he hears an enormous thump and he gets knocked off his feet, along with everyone else judging by their cries of surprise.

"What the—?" He looks around and quickly spots the huge, strangely shaped figure inching towards them, probably two stories tall in height. It's odd and bulbous, four malformed limbs sticking out of him that resemble arms and legs, but no discernible head atop its wide shoulders.

"That's him! The Body of Stone!" Kai shouts before bursting into his falcon form, soaring through the air towards the creature. 

Scott quickly picks himself back up and keeps sprinting towards it, the rest of the pack right there with him. The Body of Stone slowly raises one overlong arm and looks like it's about to strike down at Stiles, who's still motionless on the floor, and Scott launches himself at him with all the force he can muster, shielding Stiles' body with his own just in time to take the blow to his back, forcing a loud grunt of pain out of him. He tries to beat back the servants around him and shouts, "Kira! Get Stiles out of the way!"

She leaps into action, dealing with the servants easily with her katana. Satisfied that Stiles is alive and in good hands, Scott turns to assess the Body of Stone instead. Aiden and Ethan have already joined themselves together and have started charging at the stone monster, and Allison fires an arrow from her bow that explodes on impact, sending a burst of gravel from its chest to the ground. She keeps pelting it with arrows, careful to avoid hitting anyone else as the twins slam their fists into the creature's legs and Kai dives at it, his beak splitting hairline cracks into the surface of its body.

Malia, Cora and Liam dart around the entire room to keep the Body of Stone and its servants confused about where to focus. Scott, Derek and Erica charge at the Body of Stone but can't seem to do much damage. Then the giant creature leans forward and swipes a hand at them, missing by inches and slashing at the ground instead, and Scott catches sight of something dark in between its shoulders, where its neck should've been. Following a gut instinct, Scott waits a few moments until he spots an opportunity to grab onto the Body of Stone's arm, and he quickly scales the arm until he's perched precariously on its shoulders. As he suspected, there's some sort of hole there. Too dark to see, Scott just shoves his arm inside and his hand hits something wet and squishy. Bile rises in his throat at the sensation and he wants to gag, but he just clenches his fist around it and tears it out with all his might. The Body of Stone stumbles, and Scott throws the slimy innards away before reaching back in for more. The Body of Stone sways violently, and Scott hangs on for dear life as he scoops everything he can reach out of the hole, until the Body of Stone collapses to its knees and Scott jumps off before it falls flat on its chest.

"What the hell did you just do?" Liam asks, torn between confusion and amazement.

"Make sure it's really done for," Scott orders before running over to where Kira is still hovering over Stiles.

"I tried to take his pain," she says in a rush, sounding out of breath, "But I, I don't really know if…"

Scott drops to his knees beside Stiles. He wipes the residue from whatever the hell was in the Body of Stone off against the back of his shirt before he grabs one of Stiles' hands to take some of his pain. It flows into him immediately, almost overwhelming with the amount of pain he's in. Scott gasps and clenches his hand tighter in both of his, squeezes his eyes shut as he tries to control the flow, taking enough pain to relieve Stiles without clouding Scott's own senses.

"Stiles?" he asks tentatively, not even sure if he's conscious or not, as he flits a hand over Stiles' face and torso with a numb, nervous energy, trying to assess the wounds. "You with me, buddy?"

Stiles blinks slowly up at Scott through glazed eyes but says nothing. Scott smiles weakly, trying to think of something encouraging to say, before the ground suddenly gives a tremendous quake. Scott whips around to look at the Body of Stone but it still lies motionless on the ground.

"We have to get out of here," Kai says loudly, back in human form. "The death of the Body of Stone compromises the integrity of this underground world. It will soon collapse."

"But—what about Stiles? What about Boyd, and Isaac?" Scott says frantically.

The ground shakes again, less harshly.

"Grab your friend and let's go," Kai says, before shifting to a falcon again, flying in circles as he waits for the others.

Scott slides his arms underneath Stiles and tries to lift him up but he instantly cries out in distress, a hand shooting up to clench tightly around Scott's upper arm, fingers digging in painfully but Scott pays it no mind.

"Scott—" Stiles chokes out weakly before erupting in a cough, turning his head sideways to spit out blood. "I cah...I can't—"

"No, dude," Scott says in a wrecked voice. "You can't...you can't do this. You gotta hang in there, Stiles, you hear me? You're our token human, you gotta—"

His voice cracks bad and he just stops, holding his breath as Stiles' heartbeat grows weaker. Scott looks desperately behind him at all the faces of his pack. Everyone looks horror-stricken, except for Derek who just looks somber as he inclines his head slightly.

Scott whips back around to look at Stiles, whose eyes have closed, which floods Scott with a fresh wave of terror. "No!" he shouts, before realizing he can still hear his heart faintly. "No, Stiles, open your eyes! _Stiles_!"

And he does, just a sliver, but it gives him a little relief. "Stiles, listen to me. The only way I can save you is if I turn you. I want you to say yes, but...I'm sorry, but if you don't I'm probably gonna do it anyway."

Scott desperately searches his face for any sign of a response, not wanting to do this without explicit consent, but not knowing if he can live the rest of his life knowing he _could_ have done something to save his best friend's life.

But luckily, wonderfully, miraculously, Stiles nods his head once, jerkily, and it's all Scott needs before his fangs are out and he's descending on his throat, in the crook of his neck. He guesses it's kind of cliché, a little vampiric, or maybe a little too romantic, but it doesn't matter. If it goes right (and doesn't just deal Stiles the finishing blow — sweet mother of god, Scott desperately hopes this doesn't just kill him faster), then it'll just heal quickly. So he sinks his fangs into the soft flesh there, where he's put his lips a thousand times in a completely different context, and he holds it for a second, not really knowing the protocol here. With Liam, it'd just happened, and he hadn't had any time to think about it. Not that he really has all that much more time to think now. Then he's withdrawing and looking wildly at Stiles' face. The first beta he's ever made deliberately.

He has to stop taking Stiles' pain so his body will register the wounds and trigger the healing process. It kills him to do it, to see the way Stiles' face immediately twists in pain, a low, stuttering whine starting up in the base of his throat. His back arches with the force of it, his body tensing through the pain and as Scott shines his phone light onto Stiles' neck, he stares at his bite, willing it to go away, but he just keeps bleeding and bleeding.

"He, he's not healing," Scott says in a panic, looking at all his other unchanging wounds. "He's...Derek, he's not healing!"

"You probably took too much of his pain," Derek says, a forced calmness in his voice. "His body's confused. He needs something new, something to trigger it."

"Something to—? It'll kill him!" Scott says wildly, unable to consider hurting him any more, but desperate to do something, _anything_. Before he can debate it any further, Derek steps forward and stomps down on Stiles' shin, and Scott can hear the bone crackle right before Stiles lets out an ear-splitting scream. "Derek, what the fuck!"

"He needed it," Derek says roughly, looking away from them, and Scott desperately want to grab Stiles' hand, give him something to hold onto as he violently writhes in agony, but he's too scared he'll accidentally take some of his pain.

Just when Scott starts to feel sure that the life is about to leave Stiles, he sees that he's starting to calm down a little, his body's movements slowing and his cries and groans softening to pants and whimpers. A spark of hope lights back up in Scott, right before another tremor rocks the ground below them, so forcefully it knocks a few people off their feet. Kai drops heavily to the ground, back as a human, and shouts, "There's no time! Move!"

Scott growls at him. "If you knew this would happen after we defeated the Body of Stone, why didn't you say it earlier? We could've saved Boyd and Isaac first!"

"I don't care about your pack," Kai suddenly spits frantically. "I only cared about ending the Body of Stone! I couldn't've done it alone, and I needed to keep you motivated."

Before Scott can hardly even process this, Kai's back to his falcon form and zooming out of the exit. Without wasting another second on him, Scott turns back to Stiles, whose bite seems to be healing up nicely, the sight of which floods Scott with relief.

"Scott," Stiles rasps. "Scott..."

"C'mon, buddy, we're gonna get you out of here," Scott says softly, and this time when he tries to lift Stiles up, he's met with no resistance.

"I know...where Boyd...and Isaac are," Stiles continues, determined, clinging to Scott as he tries to hold him upright, even while the ground vibrates nearly nonstop underneath their feet, the ceiling raining gravel down onto them all.

"You do?" Scott asks in shock. "Where?"

"Directly above here," Stiles points feebly at the ceiling. "Dunno how far, but...it's a straight shot."

Scott looks up. "How do we...y'know, get there?"

"Let us worry about that," Derek says, over half the pack moving to stand behind him. "You get Stiles to the surface."

"We'll come with you," Lydia says as she and Allison step up to Scott.

Scott scoops Stiles off the floor to carry him — he's fallen unconscious but his breathing is evening out and his heartbeat is growing a little stronger, so Scott's mostly confident that he'll be fine. He'll heal faster asleep anyway. Holding him bridal style, Scott quickly heads back the way they came.


End file.
